Heal the Heart
by Keshiqi
Summary: Sasuke lost everything in one night. Never again. He will never lose anyone ever again.


Sasuke is seven years old when he walks through the towering wooden gates that separates his district and the rest of Konoha alone. The people who cleaned up the streets did well, the dirt path he walks on empty and only slightly singed black from the remnants of his attempts of giving his clan the proper funeral they deserved. He remembers shrieking and violently shrugging off the hands of the ANBU who would try and stop him as he hauls body after body, limb after limb, with his young, aching arms to the growing pile of bodies he was forming. Eventually, he was left undisturbed to his actions, and with his trembling fingers wet and dripping with red, he forms the seals for his clan's prized jutsu, finishing with shaky tiger seal. He felt the warm chakra in his core steadily rise to the back of his throat, sweltering, waiting, and when he blows out, he can feel the flames lick at his face as the intense wave fans out onto the pyre, blisters forming in his mouth and the corners of his lips. The putrid smell of melting flesh made him want to gag, and the sight of skin liquifying underneath the fire and sliding off to reveal layers of wet muscles and fat left him horrified and crying, tears running down his face and dragging down the blood crusted on his cheeks. Even after his chakra empties, the flames flickering before dying out, and the Sharingan fades from his eyes, it's still not enough. He can't burn through the layers of fat, much less bone, with his pathetically weak excuse of a jutsu.

It would kill him though, he thought when he collapsed onto his knees and dry-heaved, to have his clan—_his family_—be guided with the wrong flames into the afterlife just because some stranger tried to send them off with some stupid cremation ceremony and the fire of a non-Uchiha. Aunt Nadeshiko would always beckon him to come sit with her as she prunes her bonsai trees, telling him fantastical stories of the ancient gods of the Uchiha and how they came to be, and they would always leave him star-struck, wondering and shyly praying to them every now and then when he needed their favor for something. He remembers pointing to a beautiful painting hanging on the wall of her living room and asking her about the finely painted vermilion bird, spreading it's fiery wings and encompassing the countless bodies of what he could only imagine were his ancestors. "Don't point, boy," She'd glare and smack his hand down, ignoring his yelp as she returns to her writing. "That is a painting of one of our guardians, Suzaku. He is the warmth of the sun that draws our souls to the Pure Lands, lest we be led astray by mischievous yokai or become lost and trapped in a plain in between ours and the gods. That's why all Uchiha are given a pyre at their death, only our flames can call upon Suzaku to give us salvation."

He had asked back then as to why they didn't just pray to Izanami instead. Nadeshiko looked at him for a moment, her hand pausing before her next brush stroke, and her sharp eyes softened with a weariness that didn't belong to such an imposing woman like her. "Because Suzaku is also the embodiment of luck and a symbol of rebirth. Perhaps we are cruel, to wish for the dead to be dragged away from their peaceful slumber and to be thrown into this vicious cycle we call living over and over just so we can meet again, but we are Uchiha after all. The love we feel is as much a curse as it is a blessing…" She trailed off, and he didn't understand what she meant.

Now he stands in front of his family's house—_his_ house, only his, now. He takes a moment to stare at the house that was too large for him, too empty, before pushing himself to walk past it and to a pathway he once walked with Aunt Nadeshiko in the past. Each building he passes brings up memories of the people who once lived there, who once greeted him and talked to him, who once breathed and existed. Kanako-san, who ran the little clothing shop that he always liked to visit so he can watch her weave threads into extravagant and beautifully colored fabrics, her little baby bump prominent in her maternity clothes, and her husband, Tenya, who would always humor him and let him try on the many silk kimono and breezy yukata they had. Shuichi-san would sit him down on his front porch with green tea and a plate of senbei he bought from the Uruchi-obasan and Teyaki-ojisan to tell him tales about his missions as a Jonin, boasting that soon he would be applying for ANBU when positions were open. The blind oracle Yumiko-sama, who would tell him cryptic messages of the future and offered him advice when he was too shy to talk to anyone else. Madoka and Mamoru, the twins he'd play with when he finished his homework. Konatsu-obasan, Takeshi-san, Arata-san… Their eyes bore into him, silent, watching. His pace had picked up and he was sprinting so fast his surroundings became a blur, but the judgement being passed around him doesn't stop. _Coward_, the weight of their stares screamed. _Useless, pathetic, weak_. The words circle around his head, and he grits his teeth, nails digging white crescents into the palm of his hands.

He should've fought that night he found his parents dead with a stab to the heart. Everybody else tried their damned hardest to live—to _survive_, dying with kunais and swords and knives in their hands and protecting the children while they escaped—and what had he accomplished? Nothing. Instead of fighting and dying with honor, he cried. He cried and screamed and begged for answers, pleading at the feet of his bro—no, at the feet of _the murderer_—to know why he did it, why he killed everyone. Maybe that's why he was spared, because he was so weak that he wasn't deserving of death.

The myojin torii gate tower over him, it's black and red colors reminding him of the Sharingan, and he stops sprinting. He inhales deeply, a hand clutching his shirt where his heart is, and exhales, letting the numbness run through his veins as he walks under the gate and continues onwards until he reaches the shrine, various yorishiro wrapped around the trees surrounding it. He clasps his hands together and bows his head, willing his tears away, and prays. He prays until his voice becomes hoarse and his arms are sore from holding their positions for so long. He prays for the souls of his clan, his family, to safely reach the Pure Lands with Suzaku's guiding light. He prays for the goddess Amaterasu to protect those who _he_ set out to harm with her heavenly fire. He prays for the god Tsukuyomi for the darkest nights to be set upon _that man _who sought nothing but power, even at the death of his kin. He prays for the god Susanoo to lend him his strength should the day come where he and _the murderer_ finally meet again.

The sun is setting by the time he walks into his house, a quiet "I'm home," escaping his lips as he takes off his shoes, even though he knows there's nobody to greet him now. His stomach growls, but he instead rinses off in the showers to wash away the sterile hospital scent from his body and collapses on his futon. The silence wraps around him like a blanket, and it hits him—it truly, painfully hits him—that he's alone, and cries himself to sleep.

When morning comes, rays of light peeking in through the thin shoji walls to greet him instead of the gentle hands of his mother combing her calloused fingers through him hair, he wants to cry again and go back to sleep. Instead, he forces himself to get up and go through his morning routine as if nothing was wrong. He carefully avoids looking into the bathroom mirror when he brushes his teeth. He already knows that he looks terrible, the nightmares of hands gripping onto his and leaving bloody streaks on his skin, voices begging for help before being silenced forever, does a great job at leaving him sickly in the pallor of his skin and the dark, bruise-like bags under his eyes. He makes his way to the kitchen, the lack of his mother bustling around and preparing breakfast as she hums almost makes him lose his appetite. His stomach protests as he prepares to leave the kitchen empty handed, so he turns back to grab an apple out of the fridge and a glass of water. He'll have to learn how to cook, he realizes, and how to do the laundry by himself, paying the bills, managing money…

He pushes those thoughts away and leaves his house, letting out an "I'm leaving," as he steps out the door and walks. He ignores the way he feels blood sticking to his clothes and the coppery smell that comes with it, the fear every time he sees a shadow out of the corner of his eye, the loud cacophony of thoughts that all tell him what he already knows. He can't die yet because he's not worthy, his existence is proof of his inability to do anything, his life is meaningless until he avenges his family. Briefly, he wonders if he can ever move on from this, whether or not he could leave this in the past and live normally, without the burden of his clan resting on his shoulders. The thought is banished as quickly as it appears.

He wanders the streets of Konoha with no particular purpose, willing himself to not focus on the pitying glances the waves of people would give him, crowds parting and left to murmur words of sympathy behind his back as he walks past them. He's bursting at the seams with the intense fury coursing in his veins—what _right_ did they have to be whispering to each other's ears about understanding his pain _how could anyone ever know the suffering_—he considers going back to his house. Instead, he prays silently and continues on, drifting along to wherever his feet take him.

The stares don't stop, and he can't tell which are real and which are the ones that clung onto him ever since that night. He continues on from place to place, only ever stopping as the Hyuga girl in his class approaches and hands him a small bag of assorted fruits and a single kunai. _We know you are mourning_, the berries say as they gleam like rubies and onyx. _You are no longer a child, fight with honor_, the blade tells him when he glances at its polished surface. An acknowledgement from the Hyuga, he realizes as he accepts the gifts from the quiet girl. "I know we don't talk much, Sasuke-san," She manages without her usual stutter, though she was still quiet, meek. "But I know of loss, and I've seen what it does, how it changes people. So please!" Her voice gains momentum as she carries on, eyes far away and glazed as she remembers something he doesn't know, words tumbling off her tongue and out her mouth without restraint. "Don't hesitate to come to me if you need someone to talk to, I know I'm not the best conversationalist, but… I just… I-I won't just sit back and… If y-you… Friend..." She quickly loses her confidence and hunches her shoulders, curling in on herself and mumbling words that he couldn't understand.

He catches her eyes as she starts raising her head, her delicate hands fiddling with the edges of her sleeves. The blinding force of the kindness and determination in her pale, pupiless eyes nearly has him reeling from shock, so he looks deeper, searching, trying to find even a hint of something underneath her warmth, something saccharine and fake about her words. He would've activate his Sharingan too, if it weren't for the chance she would take it as a threat. For a moment, he can ignore the whispers that caress his ears, that tell him he should've died with his family, when he finds nothing. A slow warmth seeps into his very core, soothing his tired soul as it flows with his chakra, but it also hurts. It hurts so much when his heart feels so full and the strain it left on his lips when they curl, the bareboned beginning of a smile feels foreign on his face. He thinks the Hyuga—Hinata, he recalls, a sunny place, how fitting—understands, because she smiles back at him, subtle and with the grace of a clan heiress, before heading off.

For a moment, he sees a taller woman in her place, her hair as dark and smooth as the feathers of a crow instead of the glossy ebony that held a tinge of blue.

He blinks, and she's gone.

The kunai is carefully pocketed in the pouch he now keeps on his left thigh, and he carries on, footsteps ever so slightly lighter, and the voices quieter.


End file.
